Simple Team Building Concepts That Work

The team building concepts that helped build the best organizations in the world

Why do people get up and go to work?

Why do they endure the bleep-bleep-bleep of their alarm clock day after day, the cold floor on their feet, the blaring horns and stresses of rush hour traffic, and their thankless position at AnyCompany Inc.?

Is it because they are inspired by and love their job?

No, they endure it for their paycheck and the security of knowing that as long as they don't screw up, they'll still have that job next week and two years from now.

Does this scene inspire greatness? No. It inspires movies like Office Space and sitcoms like The Office.

How you ran into the house and yelled to your mom so excitedly, "I met someone at school today!"

How
did we feel back then when connections were much easier to make with
other people? And what have we lost, now with those
connections difficult to make in our everyday lives?

A lot of it
has to do with us stuck in situations with a decreased need to make
meaningful connections with others. We struggle with organizational
apathy because our organizations broke apart like smashed panes of
glass.

Leadership failed at it's core. Leaders must put people in
situations to succeed, to make them connect with others, and not allow
them to molder in their cubicle like some kind of lab rat.

Ideally, the team environment encourages people to make meaningful connection with their peers.

How
can we insert the right people into the right situations so they make
the right connections? In many situations people's attitudes and
personalities don't immediately mesh. Members form resentments and then
you have team dysfunction.

These hum-drum and combative attitudes
promote exactly why team building "workshops" have turned into big
business all over the corporate landscape and yet employee
dissatisfaction raises to an all-time high in offices around the world.

Corporate bureaucracy and ineffective leadership crushes the souls of the people who manage to survive beneath it.

So what core team building concepts do you need to establish to drive an engaged environment of purposeful action, goal driven teamwork, and meaningful personal connections?

Maybe it sounds a little like asking "how do you push a river uphill?"
But it's not, greatness can and should be achieved through determination
to build the foundation of your team on bedrock rather than corporate
jargon or team building slogans.

The three great foundational concepts of teamwork in business are:

Principles Determine Action

Expect Only the Best

Show You Care

These team building concepts are not new. In fact, they are
as old as human's ability to organize and work toward a common purpose.

Each foundational concept plays off the other. If
you account for the first concept Principles Determine Actions, the next flows naturally, like water from a spring.

Your core principles form the wellspring of the rest of your team
building activities - build your team on a foundation of bedrock rather than sand.

Build your team around your core principles and the next step in your team building concepts will fall naturally into place: Expect Only the Best.

If you build upon your core principles and account for all the stages of the team building process, then your team will consist of a well-oiled machine of achievers who can complete any task.

Expecting the Best means achieving goals. The Harvard business professor Robert Rosenthal calls this the "Pygmalion effect".

The "Pygmalion Effect" simply means that when you expect someone to
succeed they probably will (the inverse is also true). Thus, as the
leader of an organization, it does you far better to Expect Only the Best from your team because you probably will get it.

Like water flowing downstream, the next principle, Show You Care, we learn from human nature.

Most
people resent being managed, so unless you want to feel resented, don't
look over people's shoulders. Encourage your team by supporting their
successes, rather than focusing on their
faults.

By encouraging success, you set the bar for each individual's
achievement. They know exactly what's expected. When you honor someone
with a public "job well done" you encourage them toward loftier goals
and increased team cohesion.

Even though they are based on eons of time tested organizational psychology, these team building concepts seem intuitive and natural . Yet in the heat of battle, we often forget them.

Why is this? Why do teams so often break down when the going gets a little
rough? And what can you do to prevent it.

Your job is to understand these three core team building concepts:

Principles Determine Actions

Expect Only the Best

Show You Care

Do these three things while building your team and you will be farther along the path of success than 99% of your competitors.

These are simple lessons in the emotional intelligence business; yet the majority of team leaders do not followed them. The sooner you begin to apply these team building concepts to your own situation, the better the chances for your team to succeed